Dirty Projectors hit the studio this summer, rumors fly about reinterpretation of The Descendents’ ALL album

All eyes have been on Dirty Projectors since releasing their 2009 opus Bitte Orca (TMT Review). You hear that, Dave Longstreth? I am looking at you now, perhaps even looking inside you, right into your very soul. Spooky, I know! Yet with all those eyes looking at Dirty Projectors, there’s been little to see or hear concerning a proper follow-up to Bitte Orca. That changes now-ish, due to the following quote posted by the band on their Facebook page (via onethirtybpm):

hey all, dave longstreth has been working on new songs since january, and we are all getting really psyched! the band is getting together later this month to hang, listen and prepare. recording this summer. so excited for the next chapter! thanks so much for all your support ♥

♥, indeed! If all goes as planned, Dirty Projectors will be heading into the studio sometime this summer, presumably to work on their next full-length record. Let’s get the rumor mill started this very second. From what I’ve been hearing, the band, much as they did on 2007’s Rise Above (a reinterpretation from memory of Black Flag’s Damaged), are returning to the inspiration pool of SST Records. Specifically, I have reason to believe, based on absolutely no evidence, that their new record will be a track-by-track tribute to The Descendents’ ALL, in which the one-second title track is transformed into a nine-minute art-rock epic.

Living in a post-Royal Wedding world is hard. Where can commoners experience the pomp, the circumstance, the glamour, the funny hats, if not in the Kate Middleton-bearing pages of OK! and Us Weekly? Yea, verily a cloud is descending upon the Anglophone world, one without debates on the importance of wedding dress designers and royal spray tans. Fans of crazy outfits and ridiculous names face a bleak future indeed.

Enter Kid Creole, a.k.a. August Darnell, the closest thing America currently has to a swingin’, non-murderous Jazz Age kingpin. The genre-bending, self-proclaimed offspring of all things tropical has announced that he and The Coconuts will return after a 10-year hiatus with a new studio album (and presumably newer, brighter zoot suits). I Wake Up Screaming comes out September 13 via Strut Records and will be preceded by the release of the single “I Do Believe” in July. The single will feature mixes by Brennan Green, Faze Action, 40 Thieves, and Emperor Machine. As usual, the album promises the Kid’s suave blend of film noir style and smooth tropical vibes, but this time, there’s something different: collaborations with Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair.

The addition of Butler seems like a natural step for the fedora-sporting Kid Creole, whose last studio album came out in 1997. Originally formed in 1980, Kid Creole and The Coconuts were part of NYC’s fascinating and funky “mutant disco” scene. Darnell was also a member of Studio 54 favorites Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. He produced releases by a multitude of ZE Records artists like Cristina and Don Armando’s Seventh Avenue Rumba Band, who are now cult favorites.

Shut up, Andrew Bird. Every single time someone makes a direct comparison between you and me (and, oh, it happens a lot), I always come out looking pretty darn bad. You can play violin and whistle and write intelligent, likable folk-pop. I can’t play violin, can’t whistle, and my folk-pop has been frequently labeled as “low-brow” and “moody.” All I have is a dated rebuttal about how I didn’t play in The Squirrel Nut Zippers, and, honestly, I kind of wish I had played in The Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Here’s another difference between me and Bird: Andrew Bird, being Andrew Bird and all, is heading out on a tour of North America, with many dates featuring his buddy and drummer Dosh playing an opening set. Me? Hell, I doubt I’ll even go out of town more than a handful of times this year. The best I can do is maybe listen to a Dosh album or send him a postcard or something.

Everybody knows the first element to making great new wave: synthesizers. Everybody also knows the second element to making great new wave: haircuts. Two of the brightest stars in modern new wave, Twin Shadow and Diamond Rings, have the synths and they have the ‘cuts. This fall, they’ll be paying tribute to the latter on what has been dubbed the Clean Cuts Tour. If you plan on heading to any of those shows, make sure to prep your 1985 David Gahan pompadour.

Aside from the clear dedication these groups have to stylish hairdos, their love for ridiculous hair will come through in the pre-order deal they’re offering for these shows. If you pre-order tickets between June 16 and June 21 (pre-order link here, you’ll receive a t-shirt with a specific hairstyle from the tour poster, as well as a 1.5” button corresponding to your particular city’s haircut on said poster. It’ll be the most haircut-riffic pair of items you shall ever own.

Pelican, who last released an album in 2009 (What We All Come to Need) and have since remained off the road and nowhere near performing venues, have announced that they will be taking a break from new material and various less-important side-projects to head out on a West Coast tour. The series of dates include three shows with Southern Lord’s traveling Power of the Riff festival and, for the enjoyment of the band’s Kentucky fans, a gig at the Boomslang Festival.

Pelican will join the POTR Festival for three of the tour’s confirmed dates (skipping out on one of the San Fran shows) and will be joined by other like-minded and heady metal acts like Pentagram, Winter, Noothgrush, and others. As for Kentucky, the Boomslang festival will also feature Swans, Secret Chiefs 3, Horseback, and more.

The band has also stated that they are all dealing with massive levels of addiction to both sugar and glaze and have promised that their current troubles with donuts, long johns, crullers, fritters, and bear claws are being dealt with as soon as the tour is done. The band, who long ago made it public that they can”t wake up in the morning without the help of fried and sweetened dough, have already scheduled a month-long stay at noted Sugar Addiction treatment center, Johnny Cake Clinic.

Before Red Cross, before Fare Forward Voyagers, before The Yellow Princess and Requia, even before Blind Joe Death (his first self-released album from 1959), future fingerpicking master John Fahey made a series of recordings for his fellow record-collecting friend Joe Bussard’s budding Fonotone label. Issued on 78 RPM records (an unusual choice even in 1958) in extremely low numbers under his own name and various monikers (see “Blind Thomas” above), only the most obsessive Fahey scholars have heard even a fraction of these recordings, and even those who were lucky enough to order them by mail at the time have yet to hear the songs at the correct speed, as Bussard cut the 78s too fast (resulting in the records playing back slower than recorded). Now, after over 10 years of scavenging, compiling, EQing, and cursing from audio engineers, all the music sent to Bussard by Fahey from 1958 to 1965 is being released late September/early October in a deluxe 5CD set by the kings of deluxe 5CD sets, Dust-to-Digital.

Along with the rare Fonotone 78s, John Fahey: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (The Fonotone Years 1958-1965) will include roughly three hours of music from Bussard’s master tapes that was never issued on any format and could only have been heard previously if you were hiding in the tree outside Fahey’s window at the time of recording. The sum total is 115 extremely rare recordings, all edited by steel-string sensation (and Fahey collaborator) Glenn Jones, with the full approval of the Fahey estate.

The set will also include an 88-page book with essays and analysis from Byron Coley, Malcolm Kirton, Claudio Guerierri, and Eddie Dean; reminiscences from close friends and associates; reproductions of all the original Fonotone record labels; and tons of unpublished photos direct from Jane C. Hayes — Fahey’s mother. Dust-to-Digital has an amazing track record with its compilations, and in 2005 it released a Fonotone retrospective that ended up earning a Grammy for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, so expect this one to be prettier than your sweetheart. For more details about the project (and its long history), check out this interesting recollection from Glenn Jones.